Experiences | The Habitation of Justice

Lessons learned from vacationing with an iPod

Lincoln Adams | October 17, 2009 @ 6:06 pm

I’m on the last leg of my vacation trip, and finally have some time to sit down and reflect on my experiences so far, especially when it comes to blogging about it all.

Rather than use an iPhone (which are not hearing aid compatible and relies on the crappy AT&T network), I went with the next best thing, an iPod Touch that I tether to my PDA Phone using Verizon’s Broadband Connect. This way I have the advantage of using a faux iPhone on the Verizon network, as well as access to the Internet wherever I had a signal. I didn’t have to worry about motels or restaurants not offering wifi for my laptop either, since I could tether my laptop to my phone instead.

As far as connections go, Verizon gets an A here. There were times when I completely lost the signal, but I was so far high up in the mountains that it was to be expected. If I had to guess, I’d say I had a signal and access to the Internet virtually 99 percent of the time. Total WIN there. It makes liveblogging or livetweeting my experiences as they happen as easy as pie. Mmmmmm, pie…

Many of the apps on my iPod relies on geolocation to work ideally, especially Google Maps, and as long as I was in New York this wasn’t a problem. It was amazingly accurate in pegging my location, despite the fact that the iPod had no GPS chip.

That is, until I wound up in Massachusetts. Then the iPod went from thinking I was in Martha’s Vineyard, to thinking I was in Seattle. :blink:

Despite being unable to track me, I could still use Google Maps manually instead of having to rely on paper maps, except that it incessantly flashed popups telling me it could not locate me, even though I was not using the geolocation feature, and I couldn’t find any way to disable it either. I already know you can’t locate me, there’s no need to tell me that a hundred times a minute. Yeesh.

The net result of all this was a ton of wrong turns, missed exits, and complete absurdity when I came across a street in Google maps that simply did not exist in real life. FAIL

So it looks like I will have to supplement my iPod with a bonafide GPS device now. The TomTom is working on an iPod dock for the future, though I don’t know how reliable it will be, and I hear Garmin is better for the USA. A speakerphone would also be a bonus, as it would negate the need to get a headset (I’ve been thinking about getting one, but the only time I would really need it is for when I’m driving.) Something to research for the future, for sure. In the meantime, if any of you use GPS devices, I could use some advice on what you think worked the best.

Other than that, the iPod was very useful for finding points of interest, though it tended to be a hit or miss thing. Some things worth checking out wouldn’t be listed, so I always had the feeling that I was missing something right under my nose. As far as locating highly rated hotels in the area, the Simultravel app I was using for that gets an F for EPIC FAIL. It only listed a fraction of the hotels within the area I was in, making the effort of locating a good place to stay for the night on the fly a monumentally hair tearing experience. I ended up going back and forth from using Google Local to surfing TripAdvisor all on my iPod’s Safari browser, and since TripAdvisor is a slow and bloated site to begin with, just trying to find a place to stay on the go proved to be more ridiculously frustrating than it should have been. It wasn’t until I stumbled upon Hotels.com’s tailored made site for the iPhone that finding a place to stay finally became more of a pleasure than a horror. It’s how I found Best Western in Ticonderoga, New York, easily the best hotel I’ve stayed at by far, and while chatting with a friend on Google Talk on lodging ideas and checking my email, I booked a reservation there while I was pulled off the road somewhere south of Burlington, Vermont, doing it all on my iPod. Technology can be truly beautiful sometimes. :wub:

As for finding points of interest and dining, I used a combination of Yelp!, Where to? and Google Local to find places worthy of checking out. It made such an impromptu vacation as mine all the more pleasurable and easier to manage.

Finally, I noticed when entering a dining establishment that the first thing I would check for was an electrical outlet to plug my laptop in. LOL My laptop’s battery gives out after only 40 minutes, so it certainly does create a handicap when I’m lugging it around. That MacBook with its 7 hour long battery life can’t come soon enough for me.

As far as the digital/internet side of my vacation goes, I certainly learned a few things that will better prepare me for next time. Another thing I need to get a handle on is how to manage my blogging/social media time. I noticed I spent far too much time responding to tweets and comments when I should have been driving and getting to wherever I was getting. And once the day was spent, I found myself too exhausted to blog about the day’s events while it was still fresh on my mind. Ironically, when I finally had time to recap my vacation experiences so far, I ended up blogging about my third day of vacation, rather than the first day, so my chronology was all out of sorts. I was also using BrightKite to tweet/blog my latest movements, but I only used it intermittently, and there were times when it didn’t go through at all. It made for a disjointed way of getting the crux of my vacation experiences out there for all to read, but since this is all new to me, I’m sure I’ll eventually find my mojo and liveblog my experiences in a more consistent manner. :shades:

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go light my fireplace. :whistle:

Tags: battery, blogging, browser, driving, experiences, geolocation, google, google maps, gps, hotels, internet, iphone, ipod touch, laptop, new york, PDA, phone, social media, technology, travel, tweet, vacation, verizon, wifi
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log

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The most unplanned vacation, EVAH!

Lincoln Adams | October 12, 2009 @ 6:04 pm

So tomorrow I start a 4 state vacation tour (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New York), and I did virtually nothing to plan for it except sketch a rough itinerary of where I might go. I don’t even know where I’ll be lodging either. :wideeyed:

And hey, guess what the forecast will be the whole time I’m up there too? Why rain, rain, and oops, lookie here, even more rain! :wall:

Sigh.

I feel pretty good about it though, until about sometime yesterday when it suddenly hit me and I panicked for a minute: “ZOMG im drvng 100s of milez n i dunno were im goin or were im stayin i dnt pln anthen at all omg omg omg im gonna die di die aahhh aiiieeee!!!111111!!”

But I’m feeling much better now.

It’s been three years since I’ve gone anywhere, but what makes this trip truly interesting is that it will be an opportunity to finally put my iPod Touch to the test. I have all sorts of travel apps on it to help me find hotels, points of interests, and even people within my Facebook/Twitter network who might be nearby. Since my iPod is tethered to my Verizon phone, it also puts Verizon’s network to the test as well. Will I be able to stay jacked into the Internet wherever I go, and blog/tweet about my experiences as they happen? That’s what I’m hoping for. It will be the first time that I will utterly rely on my iPod as my beacon and guide rather than paper maps and AAA tourbooks. (Although I do have an AAA app on my iPod too.) :ggrin:

One of the things I’ve wanted to do with this blog was to write about my experiences as I go out there and spontaneously experience life beyond the prison that is my home town. But I also wanted to be able to easily share it all with the two or three faithful people who read my blog as well, and now with these newfound digital tools at my disposal, it makes it all possible.

It’s funny, the last few times I went on vacation, the only way I could even check my email was to stop at the local library or internet cafe and use a guest account. I didn’t even have a cam phone, so if I saw something interesting, there was no way for me to instantaneously take a shot and upload it for others to enjoy. Even when I had a laptop, half the time the motel didn’t have free wifi, so there wasn’t much I could do with it either. But now with Verizon, I have access to the Internet virtually anywhere in the United States. It’s opened up a whole new world to me, and I can’t wait to explore it.

So tomorrow, it begins. I’ll be getting up at 4AM and from there will begin my trek north. If you want to keep track of what I’ve been doing and see the latest pics/video, just read my side posts (up in the top right corner), or follow me on Facebook/Twitter if you haven’t already. That should serve as my filler content until I have a chance to blog again. Hope you enjoy my writings as much as I hope to enjoy this trip. Assuming I survive that is. :blink:

Why yes, Gecko is in fact coming along for the ride.

Tags: Connecticut, experiences, internet, ipod touch, itinerary, laptop, Massachusetts, new york, phone, travel, trek, vacation, verizon, Vermont, writing
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log

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Expanding The Dating Pool

Lincoln Adams | October 4, 2007 @ 8:29 pm

Got an email today from a dating service inviting me to join their affiliate program. Yawn.

But then I noticed this:

Ashley Madison is the premiere online dating agency of its kind designed for people in a relationship, either married or otherwise, who are interested in having romantic and intriguing experiences outside of their relationship…

:wideeyed: Holy jumping jiminy jam jimbos…

It does beg the question though: has the dating pool become so pitiful these days that one has no choice but to start hitting up married folks for some loving? I have to admit though, I’ve been tempted at times. There’s two hot coworkers I can think of who are happily married (I guess), but man, what I wouldn’t do for a little coochie coo… :naughty:

I mean come on, so what if a gal drops her skag of a husband to go rolling around in the hay with me, proving without a doubt that she has no sense of loyalty, faithfulness or moral fiber whatsoever? Biiiiiiiiiiiig deal. I mean all that talk about soulmates and one true loves, pftttttttttt, that is so 10 minutes ago. It’s all fairy tales and bunk anyway. We live in the REAL world now, doncha know?

I’m telling you man, a dating service like this just can’t miss! :innocent:

Tags: adultery, affiliate program, affiliate programs, coochie, dating, dating agency, dating service, doubt, experiences, extramarital, fairy tales, faithfulness, love, loyalty, marriage, matchmaking, online dating, pool, real world, relationship, romance, skag, soulmates, yawn
Categories: Romance and Relationships

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Need an Attorney?

Lincoln Adams | September 20, 2007 @ 7:09 pm

God help you if you ever need an attorney, but just in case you do, the aforementioned link might be a good place to start.

Well maybe. For a site that touts itself as being a directory for the “Top Lawyers of America,” there’s not much info here to indicate why these particular lawyers might be worth your time. The directory is very sparsely populated to begin with, and while a forum is also available here, there’s been no activity on the message board since last May.

By all appearances though, this is simply an underexposed commercial directory where attorneys pay a fee to have themselves listed, though to the site’s credit, they do include a review and ratings systems for visitors who may have perused the services of these attorneys and would like to report their experiences with them. The sparse number of reviews found here seems not to be the fault of the site owners, but rather because of the directory’s lack of exposure. Regardless, the ratings systems allows visitors to voice opinions that can potentially inform us as to whether a particular lawyer is either worth our time (and hard earned money), or whether he should be avoided for being an evil spawn of hell that only the devil himself could love.

Given that a field such as law seems to have far more bad seeds than humanity could ever tolerate, websites that at least attempt to make an effort to sift the good from the bad deserve to have a chance to succeed. By all appearances, this directory still has a long way to go, but use a little web design consulting to polish its looks, and bring in an expert on SEO and marketing to help it gain more exposure, and we might just have a winner here.

Tags: attorneys, bad seeds, devil, directory, experiences, law, lawyer, lawyers, legal, marketing, message board, money, ratings systems, review, web design
Categories: Legally Speaking

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A Milestone is Reached

Lincoln Adams | September 11, 2007 @ 8:00 am

After a little over a year of this blog being online, I have finally reached my 200th post! :dancena:

I have to admit that’s kind of sad. After a year’s time I should have had twice as many posts by now, and if I had stuck with posting at least one entry a day, my traffic would be ten times what it is now. Maybe.

Oh well, the good news is that when it comes to blogging, it’s all about endurance, and I just have to keep at it, even if I still don’t know what the heck this blog should be about. I went from thinking this blog would be based on my experiences in law school (and ultimately the legal field), only to end up griping about how online dating bites the big one, and how my health problems has been sucking out the life out of me, and how I think God is to blame for every little thing that has ever gone wrong in my life since I came out of the womb.

Still, I’m beginning to see the value in posting at least one entry a day. It’s helping me find my rhythm, and as the writing continues to flow I think I’ll eventually find my muse as well. It’s just a matter of time. Meanwhile my more frequent posting has already had an impact on traffic. I seem to be ranking highly in Google again, and as a result more people are coming from the search results they’re finding there.

I’m reminded of the Scripture, “Let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.“

And I guess that’s the important thing. No matter if I haven’t found my niche yet, or how bad my writing can get at times. Just gotta keep at it… keep going… let nothing break my stride, and just keep on movin’…

Tags: blog, blogging, dating, endurance, experiences, God, google, health problems, law school, matter of time, miletone, muse, niche, rhythm, Scripture, traffic, womb, writing
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log

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